Into the Pensieve
Christmas was a time of warmth in the Potter's home. It was one of the few occasions per year when the whole family was together as one, exchanging gifts and smiles, and finally, all feasting like Gods at the end of the night. However, the day following Christmas was a completely different story altogether.
"Fred." James Sirius Potter leaned over his cousin and shook him vehemently. Fred awoke with a sharp jolt.
"Waz goin' on?" Fred spoke incoherently, eyes only half open.
"Shh!" James quieted him, speaking in a pressing tone. "It's time, remember?"
"What time?" Fred yawned. James snorted and slapped him across the cheek. "OW!" Fred yelped. James urgently quieted him again, grabbing onto Fred's shoulders and shaking them crazily.
"Shut up! Do you want to spoil everything?" James hissed at him, deciding to clamp his hand down on Fred's mouth so they wouldn't wake any of their cousins. "It's time for the prank," James said into Fred's ear, stressing the word.
Fred's bright blue eyes finally opened all the way, staring into James'. "Oh." He said simply, a bit bashfully.
"Yeah." James snorted back, rolling his eyes. "Let's go."
The two boys grabbed their wands, stepped cautiously over their sleeping cousins, and finally reached the door with huge grins on their faces.
"Nothing better than a good prank." Fred remarked, watching over his huge family and trying not to laugh.
"Amen." James said, shoving Fred out of the room and closing it behind them softly, then following his cousin down the stairs and into the kitchen to get the supplies.
"Lily." Hugo Weasley whispered to his cousin, whose eyes looked slightly parted in an unnatural way. "Are you awake?"
"Those idiots." Lily said quietly. "As if we wouldn't wake up. What do you reckon we should do?"
Hugo shrugged his shoulders. "Is there anything we can do?"
Lily snorted. "There's always something we can do. I suggest that we get out of here."
Hugo shrugged again. "I'm following you." He told her. Lily brushed her red hair out of her eyes and got up slowly, stretching a bit.
"Okay." Lily said, leading him out, and shutting the door behind them quietly, tiptoeing down the stairs to the backyard.
"Ted," Victoire Weasley said sleepily into her boyfriend's chest. "The kids are gone."
"They can take care of themselves." Teddy Lupin assured her, brushing her feathery blonde hair aimlessly.
"Lily said Fred and James are off pulling some prank." Victoire told him quietly, eyes remaining closed.
Teddy groaned a bit, a vibration that Victoire felt on her hands as she leaned against his chest. "Let's go someplace else." He offered.
"Like where?" Victoire asked.
"You could dance." Teddy offered. Victoire tilted her head up to look at him, her diamond blue eyes sparkling as she smiled.
She led him by the hand out of the room and across the hallway, into an empty room.
"Ew." Louis Weasley said to Albus Severus Potter, who was sitting up and fully awake. Rose Weasley, who sat beside him, nodded her head.
"'You could dance'" Rose imitated, rolling her eyes.
"Be nice," Albus told her gently, knowing that Rose was not one to cross in the morning. Or any time, for that matter.
"Nuh-uh, I'm with Rose." Louis said, pulling another disgusted face at his eldest sister's behaviour. "And James and Fred are planning—"
"A prank. We know." Albus finished, wanting to move out as soon as possible. "Long story short: let's get out of here."
The three made their way to the attic quietly.
James rubbed his hands together with a devilish smirk. He gave a handful of dungbombs to Fred, and a biting doorknob. James had in his hands three Whizzing Worms, and two Cranky Crawlies, the kind without snappers. James knew he would get in heaps of trouble for this prank, but he didn't care. What was Christmas without a prank?
"On my count." Fred said. "One, two..."
"Three!" They said together, tossing the items into the room where their cousins slept and hearing an audible BANG. Quickly, Fred fastened the biting doorknob so their cousins couldn't get out, and shut the door, bursting into a fit of snickers with James.
The screams were likely heard by everyone in the whole house, so James and Fred ran quickly into the attic to hide from James' mother and father.
"Al?" James stopped quickly in his tracks as he observed his two cousins and his younger brother playing wizard's chess.
"Oh. Uh, hi." Albus said to his brother nervously, quickly trying to come up with something to say.
"I thought you were all sleeping." Fred told the three.
"We were until you and James woke us up." Louis explained, then doing a small dance of victory and cheering softly "Checkmate!" to a frowning Rose.
Albus sighed in defeat. "Sorry to have ruined your prank." Though Albus wore a straight face, his eyes were dancing, and James growled.
He turned to Fred, said, "Those damn kids," and walked out. Fred too, was disappointed the whole family didn't get pranked, but wondered to himself, if they had been loud enough for their three cousins to wake up, had anyone else woken up?
"To an empty room!" James declared, moving faster now that his parents would likely charge out of their room any time soon and the two boys were in plain sight. They burst into the room and quickly shut the door behind them. As they breathed out, Fred groaned.
"You two are gross." Fred declared, as Teddy and Victoire broke apart, both seemingly unperturbed by the two boys who had just walked in on them snogging.
"How'd your prank work out?" Victoire shot back in a knowing tone, which made Fred instantly frustrated. Why did everyone seem to know about their prank?
"Great!" James shot back, equally frustrated, and stormed out of the room. Fred followed right behind, getting angrier by the second.
"I know I heard screams! Someone must have gotten pranked!" Fred exclaimed, while James searched for another place to go.
"There's no time to check, let's go outside and hide!" James pushed Fred down the stairs, not even bothering to be quiet about it.
"James Sirius Potter!" Was echoed through the house at an alarmingly loud volume, which could only be that of James's mother, Ginny Potter.
James knew at that moment that the prank had been somewhat successful and grinned at Fred. The two shared a brief moment of glee, before running away faster than his new Nimbus 5000 could fly.
Breathing heavily once they reached the backyard, they finally sat, satisfied.
"Well let's see:" Fred began, looking into the sky in deep thought. "We had eleven cousins in the room when we left. Take away three," He held up eight fingers. "Take away another two," He put down two fingers. "Alright. We got six of them. Not bad, I guess." He settled.
James sighed. "Better than nothing," He decided.
"James got in trouble!" Hugo jumped out from behind the shed, holding Rose's broom in his small hands. Lily ran out beside him, smiling at the boys.
Fred put his head in his hands. "Minus two. We pranked four people." He said, and it suddenly sounded a lot more pathetic than it had two seconds ago.
"Some prank." James said gruffly, kicking a patch of dirt and looking up to Hugo. "Your sister is going to kill you for touching that, you know." He told the small ginger boy standing before him.
Hugo suddenly looked very nervous. "You won't tell, will you?" He stuttered.
"If you tell, we'll tell Mum you pulled the prank!" Lily said to James defiantly, while Hugo watched her in admiration.
James snorted. "I think she knows." He watched as his little sister's face fell, then she turned to Hugo and told him to go return the broom to the shed. Hugo ran quickly, and was back with empty hands in a matter of seconds.
"James!" Ginny Potter came storming out of the house in her lavender robe, eyes narrowed like a hawk, hair wildly whipping from behind her.
"Morning." James said cheekily, while Lily and Hugo nervously backpedaled away from the boys, as if they too, would get in trouble for merely being close to the boys.
Ginny laughed without humour. "Oh, if you could see your father right now, cleaning up your mess."
Just the mention of James's father, Harry Potter, made both Fred and James stop smiling. "We, uh..." James stuttered.
"It is the morning after Christmas! You don't think, after all the running around your father and I did last night, preparing meals, washing dishes, entertaining, giving gifts," She stressed the last word, knowing that James loved Christmas because of the exchanging of presents. "You don't think we'd be tired? That maybe, we might want to sleep?"
"I... I didn't really think of that." James said.
"And Fred? Do you have anything to say for yourself?" She demanded of her nephew.
"I'm sorry Aunt Ginny." Fred lowered, "We didn't want you and Uncle Harry to be affected by the prank, honest."
While she stood there with arms crossed, looking down on the two boys, she sighed and ran an angry hand through her knotted hair. Sighing again, this time a bit more dejectedly, she said, "Give me your presents."
"What?" James demanded loudly. "What do you mean, give you our—"
"Presents. Your gifts that you received yesterday. This is called a punishment. I know you're both familiar with that."
"Aunt Ginny, in all respect, you can't be serious! It's the day after Christmas! A day specifically reserved for playing with our new presents!" Fred explained, scandalized.
But Ginny didn't budge. "I want your presents and I want them now. In fact, I think everyone should give back their presents."
"No!" Lily cried, running up to her mother and frowning. "What did we do? I want to play with my gifts!"
Suddenly, James and Lily's father, Harry, walked out of the house with a threatening scowl on his face, running both his hands though his unmanageable locks. "I hope you're both satisfied with yourselves. You—"
"Honey," Ginny started, leaning into him and whispering in his ear. After a while, he shrugged.
"Sounds great to me. Maybe it'll finally teach them something." And then, with a frustrated yawn, he kissed her on the cheek. "I'm going back to bed."
"I'll be up soon," She told him, then turned back to the four children. "I know exactly what you all got, and you can tell all your cousins to have all their gifts in the broom shed by..." She glanced at her watch. "Eight o'clock sharp. I'm going to lock the doors and then maybe, just maybe, you'll all learn the meaning of respect."
"How the hell will this teach us respect?" James demanded angrily.
Ginny gave him a look that made the three other children back away slowly. She took a moment, then, "I hope next time you try to pull another prank, you'll think of how you lost your Christmas presents for a week."
"A week?" The four children echoed in unison.
Ginny raised her eyebrows, staring at them all. Before she could say anything, Lily spoke up:
"What on earth are we supposed to do all week with no magic and no presents?"
Ginny smiled tightly. "Spend quality time with your family." She threw her arms up in defeat. "God knows that's what Christmas is for, after all." And then she turned back to the house, calling over her shoulder, "Eight o'clock!"
"I bet you're all wondering why I've called you here." James stood on a large trunk that one of his cousins had brought all their clothes in for the week. The children always stayed at the Potter's for the week after Christmas, and all took the train back to school together.
"Frankly, I'm wondering why I haven't killed you yet!" Roxanne Weasley spoke up, flipping her damp hair over her shoulder. She had to take a shower because she smelled so bad after all those dungbombs.
James laughed nervously, then smiled. "I'm here to tell you all that my Mum says to put all your presents in the broom shed!"
"Beg your pardon?" Dominique Weasley said, her blonde hair also wet from her shower, as she narrowed her crystalline blue eyes.
"Well, you see... Mum thought it might be a nice—" He looked to Fred for assistance.
"Experiment," Fred offered, also stepping onto the trunk. "To see if we could spend, uh, Christmas break with each other. Like, as a family." He said. James nodded.
"It's your punishment for pranking us, isn't it," Victoire said disdainfully from the back, always seeing through James and Fred's lies. She had a sixth sense, that girl.
"Uh, maybe?"
"Now I'm really wondering why I haven't killed him yet." Roxanne said.
"I want to go home!" Lucy Weasley told her older sister, Molly. Molly nodded.
"Yeah James, I mean, what's Christmas without presents? We might as well go home."
A couple cousins nodded in agreement, and suddenly, James was overcome with a sense of courage, as he yelled, "No!"
"No?" Rose raised an eyebrow.
"No!" He insisted. "I accept my Mum's challenge, and you know, maybe we can show her that we don't need presents and magic to have fun!" He shouted encouragingly. "What do you say?"
"I say you're mental." Roxanne said. "I mean, your house is huge, but... what are we supposed to do for a whole week?"
James thought long and hard. He looked to Fred for help, but Fred had nothing as well. James had to face it; his house was pretty boring.
"We could get our presents back." Albus said suddenly, looking up at his big brother for approval. "Like, give them in to Mum—"
"But steal them back." James finished quietly, a plan already forming in his mind. "We'd need your help. All of you." He told his large family, thinking and speaking faster now, and also quieter, so his Mum wouldn't hear.
Fred looked at James quizzically. James ignored him and continued on, "But first, let's give all our presents to my Mum." He clapped his hands together to conclude the meeting, and watched as his cousins actually... listened. Most of them grumbling, but nonetheless, they followed his orders.
"Don't s'pose we have a choice," Rose muttered to Albus. "Brilliant idea, by the way. It'll keep us from boring to death."
"Thanks." Albus said a bit shyly, not used to being the idea person. That spot was usually reserved for Rose.
"I really wanted to read this," She sighed disappointedly, holding up the large book her mother, Hermione Weasley had given her. "Mum said it was her favourite."
"We'll get it back in no time," Albus told her, as if he knew. Truth be told, he didn't really have that much faith in his elder brother, but working together might bring their entire family closer. And that's what Christmas was about, right?
"James, we really don't need the whole family for this," Fred told James under his breath while they watched their cousins collect their things. The two boys had already taken their new presents to the broom shed. "All we'd need is a couple spells, maybe a potion—"
"Really Fred?" James turned to him, whispering. "And how are supposed to find those things? We can't use our wands and our new kits are in the shed!" He had to work to keep his voice low, while several of his cousins were already going out into the backyard and dumping their things. "My plan is this," He brought Fred in closer. "We play games with the younger cousins, we socialize with the older cousins, and bada-boom, Mum will see and give us our presents back for being one big happy family." James snorted.
Fred stepped back and looked at James. "You are a genius."
"I know." James said, watching as Albus and Rose were the last two to leave the room. James caught Albus's eye and watched as his litter brother smiled at him. James smiled back.
"And so it begins," Fred said to James when the large room was only filled with their cousins sleeping bags and pillows. It was oddly empty, but James was confident with his plan. They'd get their presents back in no time.
Author's Note:
Reviews are crazy awesome. I hope you stick around to hear what the story will actually be about, as this was just an abnormally long prologue to introduce the characters and setting and such.
Thanks for reading to the end,
-Taylor